


everything you can't control

by mybeautyandrage



Category: Glee
Genre: College, Depression, Eating Disorders, F/F, Glee Season/Series 04, Mental Breakdown, Oneshot, Post-Break Up, References to Depression, Sad with happy ending, brittana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:41:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22721131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybeautyandrage/pseuds/mybeautyandrage
Summary: “It didn’t actually take her that long to realise that going to college had been a mistake.”[early- to mid- season four, focusing on Santana’s time at Louisville and her dropping out and moving to NYC. TW for depression and eating disorders]
Relationships: Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	everything you can't control

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of wanted to address the whole Santana-Louisville thing which happened at the start of S4. Because, let’s be honest, that storyline isn’t talked about enough and as a first year uni student who may or may not have had the worst first few months there but was too guarded to tell anyone that I was struggling like hell, it’s kind of an important to me. Also incorporates the whole eating disorder thing which was largely hinted at for half the show but otherwise ignored. So, yeah… this is it.
> 
> TW for depression and eating disorders

It didn't actually take her that long to realise that going to college had kind of been a mistake.

For the first couple of days it had been fine. She'd met a few people, gone to a few parties, got drunk at them, and starting back cheerleading and at a higher level than what she'd been used to was nice. So, yeah, it could've been worse.

It also could've been a lot better. She realised that in the second week, when she'd also learned how much of a homophobe her roommate was and that Louisville was kind of like Lima, and that was when she concluded that she just didn't really like it in the Midwest. She'd gone to most of her classes and they'd been fine, a bit dull but that was what it was, and there was that one sociology lecturer who had the most monotonous, boring voice, but nothing was a complete turn off. Nothing was bad, really. It was just mediocre. Lukewarm. And Santana couldn't help but wander around campus sometimes feeling like something was missing.

Of course something was missing. Brittany was missing. Not a day or a phone call or Skype call went by when she didn't feel that ache in her chest. She felt lost without her, really. She felt lonely and like a part of her had been left behind in Lima.

She missed Lima, in a way, which was something she never actually thought she'd say or at least think. Lima was shit, there was essentially nothing there physically, but emotionally that's where everything was. She missed McKinley and Glee and the Cheerios and she even missed Rachel demanding all the solos, Sugar's screeching high notes (if you could even call them that) and, surprisingly, she missed Sue's constant verbal abuse and fat-shaming antics.

But that was all in the past. This was her life now. This was where she was, and she had said yes to here, so here she was, and sometimes it was actually fun when she tried.

* * *

"I heard about you and Brittany."

Santana tried to push down the lump in her throat at the mention of that name. Her eyes were sore from crying and she wasn't really ready to have another breakdown on the phone to Quinn right now.

It had been Six days. Six single days since she'd sang that song and told her that they should get rid of the label for the time being, because she didn't want to ruin what they had. She didn't want for this stupid university to ruin that.

"It's… fine."

_Wow, Santana, super believable there._

"It wasn't an official breakup."

"Yeah, Brittany called me earlier and said that," the blonde on the other side of the phone trailed off and then went quiet for a few moments, as if she was wondering if she should have said that or not. "Still, it's hard."

"Yep."

Briefly, Santana wondered whether Brittany had told her the news and why she was ringing her anyway, but then she figured out that Rachel had probably ended up calling her and spilling all the details about every couple's recent breakups. She knew that the two called each other a lot, and with Rachel and Finn no longer a thing, she could only assume that the shorter girl had called Quinn numerous times begging for moral support, so it made sense.

She was relieved when Quinn changed the subject. Except, she wasn't really, because the subject had changed to the damn thing that had contributed most to the breakup, and she didn't really want to talk about that either.

"So, how's Kentucky? How's cheerleading? It feels like we've not spoken properly in forever."

Santana laughed, but it was forced, to fill the time between the question being asked and her response. She didn't really know what to say. She didn't really _know_ how she was feeling. She just felt numb to everything; classes and cheer practices went by and it was kind of like a checklist at this point, ticking things off for the sake of it without any emotional gain from anything that was happening.

"Kentucky isn't that different to Ohio," she shrugged, even though she knew the other girl couldn't see her on the other end of the line. "It's nice living in a big city, though. It has a nice vibe, if you get me. Cheerleading… yeah, it's great. It's intense, so intense, but it's rewarding and some of the people on the team are insane."

She 'forgot' to mention how mad the coach was when she missed three rehearsals in the past week when she was home. She also left out the part where she was currently laid on her bed with an ice pack on her ankle and a ton of ibuprofen in her system because she'd messed up at practice the other day and landed dodgy.

When Quinn started talking about Yale and her classes, she kind of zoned out a bit. Not in a rude way, and not on purpose, but because she was kind of tired of everyone in her life living these new amazing lives, whilst she was stuck here in a dorm, barely eating anything besides half a bowl of cornflakes with three unfinished essays on her laptop.

"Promise me that you'll call whenever you want to talk or anything," Quinn said after telling her all about this lecturer which honestly seemed a bit like a creep, not that she'd tell the girl that because she couldn't be bothered with arguments right now. "You can't break up the Unholy Trinity."

_Could you not, though, when one of the elements was already fractured?_

* * *

Her stupid ankle put her out for another week. She'd strapped it, but she was met with sharp pain again as she tried to do that flip, and it was too bad for her to hide. The coach had insisted she leave it for a while again, just to be safe, because they had enough people on the team anyway to fill in for her.

_Fabulous. I'm not even really needed here. I can be replaced. Just what I want to hear._

She'd spent the first day of it bored to death in the library, and then she realised she'd had enough. She packed enough for a week and took the first train back to Lima she could. Her mother wasn't happy to find her daughter on the doorstep again, and her father was even less impressed. Regardless of the older woman she felt, she'd left her a list of chores for the week and fixed her up a big plate of food, shaking her head.

"You need to take care of yourself better. You wouldn't get hurt then."

Her mother didn't need to know that she'd eaten some of the chicken and some of the salad but thrown the rest in the bin as soon as her mother had gone out for groceries.

And then she'd found herself in the school musical of 'Grease'. It was weird being back at McKinley and involved in everything going on yet again and so soon, especially when she'd bid not even a year ago that she was never coming back to Lima once she left. But doing that musical, it felt like she was home, back where she had always belonged.

The minute that train got back into Louisville after that week was over, that pang in her chest hit again. This time, it was worse. She went back to cheer practice, joined another society, and drowned herself in working out and studying and partying and absolutely _anything_ to keep her busy. She had to keep herself distracted from all this.

But after all that was done, and the second she got into bed each night, the tears would start again.

* * *

Thankfully, Thanksgiving was coming up soon and that gave yet _another_ excuse to go home. At this point, Santana didn't want to even consider how much she'd spent on train tickets to and from Louisville because it was a scary amount for one way regardless. But it wasn't like she was really going all out, spending all her money at once like some college students do. Being pretty much raised by her abuela in Lima Heights had meant that she had been raised frugal.

Of course, this was her first Thanksgiving without her abuela. And, yeah, that was the old witch's problem, as Brittany had told her on the phone the other night when Santana had needed someone to talk to and was trying not to cry, but it didn't mean that it didn't hurt. It didn't mean that it didn't hurt how nobody really talked much, or how her mother had a sad look in her eyes, like she was missing something, but didn't want to bring it up.

It looked the same way that she'd felt all these past three months. Like something was missing from her life and she couldn't bring it up without someone else getting hurt.

When they'd been going round asking what they were thankful for, Santana had no idea what to say. She ended up saying something about how she was thankful that Glee club was still all close-knit and in contact. Nothing else seemed half as worthy of a mention.

* * *

She ended up staying in Lima until Sectionals. Finn had her mentoring this girl, Marley. Marley was good, really good, and could easily bag a few solos with minimal effort, but the latina ended up feeling bad for her. Marley was never _just Marley_. Marley was always ' _the next Rachel Berry'_ or something. Always put against her, always compared with her.

_As if she didn't need any more comparison between her and anybody else right now._

It didn't take Santana long to realise that Marley had an eating disorder. She'd seen a few signs when she'd come back last month for Grease, but hadn't thought much of it, pretty much concluding that it was just her being paranoid and over-observant. But then some days she'd be really pale, look really dizzy.

She spent most of her lunch break in the choir room with her little notebook. Whenever she'd mentioned food, the brunette seemed to go quickly into panic mode. How she'd always get a mint out of her bag after she'd gone to the bathroom. How she left the bathroom with a guilty look on her face.

Finding the laxatives had scared her.

" _They're from months ago."_

" _Why did you have them there anyway?"_

" _I-"_

" _I'm taking whatever you have left and chucking them away. They'll ruin you. Anyway, you don't need them, Marley. Don't let anybody tell you that you do. You're beautiful and it sucks that in this sad world only one person has to tell you that you're not and you'll believe it for years and years."_

She'd felt so sick after Sectionals, when Marley had collapsed and she'd been left in a room with her to 'babysit'. She'd tried to talk to her, but Marley was too distraught about the whole ordeal to listen and honestly, Santana was feeling kind of triggered and shit about it as well.

She'd known, after all. She'd known, and she'd tried to do something about it, but she didn't know what exactly. Back in high school, she'd always competed with Quinn for the lowest BMI, the smallest portion, the lowest calorie count for a specific week, and other unhealthy shit just like that. And it seemed normal at the time. She'd accepted that way of life. And now, maybe, she was starting to realise that it wasn't normal.

* * *

Christmas, like Thanksgiving, had been depressing. It had, like Thanksgiving, literally just been her and her parents in the house, no abuela. Christmas was kind of depressing these days, anyway. It didn't have that feel to it anymore, the magic it had when it was she was a kid, and she didn't have Brittany's excitement to get her hyped about it, either.

She threw up her dinner. She hadn't done that in ages, she'd rather just not eat ever than do that, but she had because she didn't want to make the meal any more of a shitshow than it had been turning out to be anyway. She'd excused herself to do some assignments (crazy, right, doing assignments on Christmas Day? Doing assignments at all wasn't really a concept to her anymore, every time she pulled out her laptop she'd just stare at the screen in panic but not be able to move a finger on any key) but spent most of the afternoon crouched on the bathroom floor, trying to get as much up as she could.

The funny thing was that as soon as she sat back down at the desk, pulled the laptop up, she began to feel sick all over again.

Some time between Christmas and New Year, a couple of sleepless nights on the way and only a few sentences into her assignments written, she'd decided that she didn't want to go back to Kentucky. Or, more so, that she couldn't. The idea made her stomach leap, her head spin, and her throat tighten up. She hated it there, it was undeniable, and it wasn't like it was a case of 'maybe it will get better' because she'd tried that and it wasn't getting better and she didn't know how much more she could try before it started to kill her.

She booked a hotel for a few nights, but that turned into weeks. It wasn't that hard lying about it. She could hide it. She wasn't in the house at this point, after all. She'd have to tell her mom at some point, and she didn't want to, but she could get away with keeping it to herself for a bit. She'd just hang around somewhere for a little while until it got to the point where she could tell her.

Sue was the first person to find out that she'd dropped out. She'd gone up to Lima again for a few days, because Glee club was doing some thing or another and she had nothing else to do, and Sue had called her into her office on the second day she was there, showed her a printed out email which had the Louisville badge at the top, and had set it in front of her and waited for the girl to say something.

"I didn't like it there," was all she could say eventually, after sitting there in silence for a few moments. She'd made some excuse about how she didn't get on with anyone - very true, to be honest, but that wasn't the only reason why by any shot. Maybe it _had_ contributed to her loneliness, but the thing which mattered the most was that she missed Brittany. She missed high school and how easy everything was even though back then it all felt so damn hard. Maybe that's why she came back to often. Like it was an escape from reality. She kind of got why Mr Schue was so set on the Glee club when it first started back up again, now.

But it didn't matter now, did it? Brittany wasn't hers anymore. She'd let her go, and now she was with Sam, and she hated it that way but it wasn't like she could do anything about it? And - who knows - maybe this made her feel worse than she had when she was away at college. Yeah, she was seeing her, but it hurt more than not seeing her when she had to watch them holding hands everywhere they went, third wheeling on that one meal out they'd had whilst she was other.

Yeah. She was jealous of her ex, but her ex just so happened to be her best friend, and Quinn was all missing-in-action at Yale these days so she didn't really have anyone else in her life.

"Santana, I know that something is wrong," Brittany had said one day, after Glee practice had ended, as she was packing her things up. She had wanted to say something first, but she didn't know what to say. She looked up at the blonde girl, her head cocked to the side a little. "What is it?"

The latina forced a smile, but it was hard to keep the corners of her lips turned up without tears threatening to leak out of her eyes.

"Everything is fine."

The blonde shook her head, reaching out to clasp her hand around the other girl's wrist. "No, Santana, _nothing's_ okay! Why can't you see that? You've dropped out of college-"

"Sue told you?"

Brittany's eyes softened and she reached her other hand out to hold Santana's in her own.

"Why didn't _you_ tell me, San? Why did she know before I did?" she whispered, and the brokenheartedness and almost the rejection in her voice was seeping out. "You can talk to me, you know? You can always talk to me, I'm your best friend. What happened?"

Santana opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She didn't know what she was supposed to say. It was like the words were stuck inside her, a jumbled mess she couldn't even decipher and if she tried to force something out, for one, it wouldn't make any sense because it would all be in a weird order because she couldn't even process the events of the past six months, and two, floods of tears would come out with them.

She didn't realise she was shaking until Brittany pushed her onto the piano stool and cupped her cheek, to hold her steady.

"Talk to me, baby. Something's happened and I can't do anything unless you let me in."

She stared at her, hoping that the mere eye contact would help her case, but her efforts were futile.

_Something's happened. Everything's happened, Brittany, I just don't know what's happened that's significant enough to tip me over the edge._

The blonde shook her head, pulling her into a hug as she could feel the pain radiating off of the latina.

"So this is what's going to happen," she said after a while. "Tonight, you're going to come to mine and we're going to have a sleepover, order in, and watch a movie or something. And then tomorrow, you're going to get the early train to New York and you're going to stay with Kurt and Rachel. You need to be in New York, Santana, not here in Ohio or in Kentucky. So I'm going to buy you a train ticket, and we're going to get your things from wherever you've been staying, and you're going to say 'yes'. I've decided for you."

* * *

I mean, yeah, it had been unexpected - Santana had only known that she was moving to New York under twenty four hours ago - but she'd at least expected for Rachel to be a bit less snarky about her moving in with them. The brunette had been glaring at her and flouncing about the apartment about it all evening and it was starting to drive Santana mad.

"Brittany gave you our address?" Rachel was pacing up and down the bit of the loft that was supposed to be the living room, hands in the air, appearing very unnecessarily and very overdramatically flustered. "How did she even _get_ our address?"

"Rachel, you gave out our address to everyone so that they could all send us Christmas cards," Kurt said from the other sofa, looking somewhere on the scale between 'annoyed' and 'bored'.

"I can get a hotel if you really can't stand the sight of me, but I'd prefer if you at least let me stay one night right now because I've been travelling all day and I'd prefer to not have to wander the streets of Bushwick in the dark looking for another place to stay," Santana muttered, kind of sick of this already. And apparently it was enough to get Rachel to shut up for the night, her retreating to her room and calling this boy for an hour, whilst Kurt was watching some old soap opera on the TV in the corner which had _definitely_ seen better days whilst giving Santana a pitiful look every few minutes like she was some charity case.

Somehow, a short term stay plan had turned into long term, when she'd got herself a few jobs to keep her occupied and distracted from everything. Kurt had said that it was fine as long as she paid her third of the rent and Rachel had got better over time, even though she had threatened that if she disturbed her sleep schedule or ate her food, she was out immediately with no sympathy, which was fine because she didn't think she could stomach the latter anyway. She couldn't think she could stomach much food these days, anyway, and the smell of dodgy fast food anywhere she walked here had probably put her off most things anyway. Besides, her diet had been shit ever since she started college and was continually going downhill.

_Not that it mattered much, when the number on the scale was going down with it._

She slept on the second-hand IKEA couch that Kurt and Rachel had found with a 'free to a good home' sign on it on the street a few weeks after they'd moved in apparently - she'd learnt this after staying on it for a month, and was semi-disgusted to say the least, but it was better than sleeping on the floor so she tolerated it (she also trusted that the brunette also felt the same so must have cleaned or done something to it before she arrived). Rachel had given her one of her large throw blankets too - 'the tatty one' apparently, but it wasn't too bad, really, and with a job to distract her, she was fine.

Or, at least, she was fine, until it got to around two in the morning and her thoughts caught up with her.

_Better than the thoughts arriving the second she woke up back in Kentucky or Lima or wherever and lasting until the second she went to sleep._

She still missed Brittany. She missed Brittany more than anything or anyone. And Brittany was still her last thought each night before she closed her eyes.

* * *

"I don't think she's eating properly" was the first thing Santana heard when she woke up one morning. She pulled the blanket up to her eyes, pretending to be asleep for a few moments longer so that she could listen in. "She's working all these long shifts, day in, day out, and we never see her, and even when she does, she never wants to eat with us."

"Well, you did tell her that she couldn't eat any of your food, threatening to kick her out if she did so much as touch it."

"Yeah, but I've invited her to each with us since then."

"Well, guess what? Maybe she doesn't like the idea of your various vegan stews, Rachel, no offence. I know you work hard on them but they're… an acquired taste, to say the least."

"Think about it, Kurt, when was the last time she made something which wasn't boiled rice or breakfast cereal or coffee?" the brunette went on. "That's not normal. And look how unhealthy she looks-"

_Wow, Rachel, rude much, I look great. Better than ever before, in fact._

"I don't think she's ever eaten much, to be honest, Rachel."

A drawer slammed in frustration, making the latina flinch a bit with how unexpected it had been, but she still tried her hardest to remain hidden under her borrowed blanket. She wanted to hear more. She wanted to hear everything her housemates had to say about her which they couldn't say to her face. Maybe she'd find something out about herself, she thought.

"So are you saying she has an eating disorder?"

"Yeah, I am, Kurt. I think she does. Either way, this isn't normal. She doesn't eat like a normal person and, believe it or not, it actually _concerns_ me. I'm _worried_ about her."

The rest of the conversation seemed to fade out at that. Apparently, Rachel was 'worried' about her. And the only person who'd ever admitted that they were worried about her when the issue wasn't clear was Brittany.

It was kind of a scary concept. She never really had gotten used to the idea of people 'caring' about her, and she didn't know whether to believe it was genuine or not. After all, who would want to care about her in the first place.

_Her._

_A straight up bitch._

_A high school bully._

_A college dropout._

_An essentially homeless mess who couldn't sleep, eat or function properly and had no girlfriend and had no family who loved her unconditionally._

She was a trainwreck. And she hadn't even realised.

* * *

"I'm worried about you, Santana."

_Make that two people besides Brittany._

Santana scoffed. "Why? I'm fine."

* * *

Kurt sighed, shaking his head and grabbing a handful of the popcorn from the bowl balanced on the arm of the sofa. He turned to her, offering her the bowl.

"Popcorn?"

Santana scrunched her nose up. She was still put off by the stench of the theatre the other week when she had gone to watch some dumb movie alone to pass the time. "No thanks."

He gave her a funny look, to which she just shrugged, hiding the fact that inside she was panicking, her stomach doing somersaults and increasing that sick feeling she got sometimes, and her head was pounding.

_She probably hadn't drank enough today. Or she hadn't drank enough besides strong coffee._

"We've lived with each other for, what, four months now? I think I know when something's up with either you or Rachel," he continues. "You can tell me anything, y'know? I won't tell anyone unless you ask me to. Rachel feels the same, but, eh, she's a blabbermouth so I thought I'd come to you first and iterate that."

She stares at the screen for a few moments, focusing so hard on it that it probably looks a bit too obvious that she's trying to ignore him.

"If you don't want to talk to us, that's fine, we get it," Kurt continues, "but you can't keep acting like nothing's wrong when something clearly _is_ wrong with you."

She laughed bitterly. It was the only thing she knew how to do. She couldn't exactly cry right now. Not when people were here, with her, not when she'd just essentially been told that something was wrong with her and she was making it too obvious.

"I'm fine, Kurt. Really, I am. Don't you worry about me."

She felt her heart break a bit when the boy shuffled closer, puller her into her with an arm around her shoulder.

"But we _are_."

* * *

She'd always been good at keeping her emotions in. Or, at least she'd been good with keeping the deep stuff in, and she'd been good at keeping everything in when nobody was around to see her break and struggle. But then there was that one night, that one _damn_ night, where everything was falling apart.

She'd been missing Brittany a lot that day anyway. Like, a lot. She'd wandered round the cafe she worked in (well, one out of two cafes she worked in here in New York) numb, unable to feel anything but this weight on her chest and this sick feeling in her stomach, kind of between the feeling she got when she hadn't eaten in a while and between the one you got when you were guilty of something. And it had been a shit day, with her dropping three trays and and messing up five orders having half the customers yell at her because they weren't doing cappuccinos because the machine was being a little bitch on that particular day. So, naturally, she'd been in a shit mood.

It was perhaps half one in the morning when she'd started crying. And she didn't know why she had started crying, to be honest, it had just started because she was over-emotional and having a crap day and then one thing had turned into another and soon enough she was sat up in uncontrollable tears, unable to breathe, trying to muffle her sobs with her blanket whilst clutching her chest desperately, but it went to no use.

So then, with the three residents of the loft being separated by nothing but a curtain, Rachel and Kurt heard, rushing in and trying to comfort the devastated girl. Kurt ran to get her a glass of water from the kitchen whilst Rachel wrapped her arms around her and tried to get her to calm down but she was beginning to panic herself, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of her loneliness and overwhelmed by how claustrophobic everything was right now.

And, no, not because Rachel was smothering her, but because she felt trapped in her own damn body, in her own shitty life and there wasn't anything she could do to get out.

"I miss her," she managed out between sharp breaths and coughs and fits of sobs. She wasn't sure anyone heard her because she was crying so loud that she was sure the flat below her could hear her crying, so she tried to get the words out again. "I miss Brittany."

Rachel held her tighter, apparently understanding, trying to calm her down but somewhat failing.

"I know. I know you do."

"Nobody understands, and I don't know what to do anymore-" she choked out.

She heard the brunette sigh in defeat besides her. "I know. Here, just breathe for me Santana, just keep breathing."

Her cries wracked her body for a while longer, and she was still crying when Kurt decided to pick her up and let her sleep with Rachel for the night. She wanted to make a joke about how he probably couldn't lift a dumbbell to save his life, but then she realised that she had got so skinny that it probably wasn't that hard.

Suddenly, everything was really heavy and she began to realise how bad things had gotten when she hadn't realised the extent to which she was really struggling.

"Get to sleep, okay?" Rachel whispered, stroking the over girl's arm as she laid there next to her in bed. The latina was shaking, God knows why, and her whole body ached and in that moment she had never felt so empty and hopeless. "Kurt's going to call Brittany in the morning, hey? You're okay. You're okay."

* * *

"Hey, you're awake."

Santana went still at the sound of that voice, slightly more awake than she had been ten seconds ago, but she didn't turn around.

_It wasn't real. It couldn't be._

"Santana, look at me, baby."

She paused for a few seconds before rolling over to the other side of the bed, her heart leaping when she realised she hadn't been imagining it. The blonde was looking at her with a sad, sorry smile and she reached out to push a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"It's you," the latina whispered.

"Yeah," Brittany laughed quietly, "yeah, Santana, it's me."

Santana laid there in silence, staring at the girl in front of her for a few seconds, furrowing her eyebrows as she tried to piece together everything that had happened.

"Kurt said you had a bad night last night so I got the first flight I could here."

The latina stared straight at her again before moving herself closer, as Brittany put her arm around her and held her tight.

"What happened, baby?"

The soft tone in her voice was all it took for Santana to break down in tears once again.

* * *

"I was missing you, and everything else went wrong."

It was four days after Brittany came to New York, skipping out on a few school days back at McKinley but it didn't matter, she was due to graduate this year anyway and it was a week before spring break so it wasn't like anyone was really focusing anyway.

To be honest, even if exam season she was pretty sure she'd get on a plane and fly here if she knew Santana needed her. And from what she heard from Rachel when she met her at the airport, that 'bad night' was one on a whole new level. She didn't know everything that happened, besides the fact that Santana was having a panic attack and the only thing she was saying was that she wanted Brittany, but when they actually got out of bed that afternoon she realised how crap and sick and just bad in general Santana looked and it felt like a punch to the chest.

It wasn't her fault, because she didn't even know any of it and she wasn't sure how she'd know from their daily emails and texts and whatever, but it still hurt that nobody had noticed how much she was breaking this whole time. It still hurt that nobody had noticed how much she was hurting herself over all this.

Brittany stared at the half eaten plate of pancakes and maple in front of the latina. They'd been sat on the plate for half an hour but only one of the three and about a quarter of the second one was gone. It became quite clear quite soon that Santana had fully relapsed with her eating disorder that came about in middle school and lasted until a few months before the end of senior year. She wasn't going to shove her on some scales in the bathroom, but she kind of figured the girl was a good stone and a bit underweight, so for some reason she'd tried cooking for her.

"Four more bites, Santana," Brittany whispered, gesturing at the pancakes. "You're doing good."

Santana pulled a face at first instance, but obeyed regardless. She wasn't sure but maybe she was seeing the pancakes disappearing off her plate and into her mouth as a good thing, and she wasn't sure whether she was enjoying the food because of what it was or whether it was just the fact that Brittany had made them. As long as she didn't think too hard about it, it might be okay.

To be honest, yeah, the last time she tried not to think too hard had gone to shit and that's why she was in this mess of a situation right now anyway.

"I broke it off with Sam the other day," Brittany said after a while to clear the silence. "We realised we wouldn't work in the long term. We have different interests, so we just left it as it is."

Santana put her fork down, a weight being pulled off her chest. "So you're single now?"

"Yeah," Brittany replied with a smile. "Yeah, I am."

Oh. New information.

"I was gonna ask if you were still holding onto your 'anti-long-distance' thing, but then Rachel texted me at three in the morning the other night after, y'know… stuff went wrong… so I don't think I'll ask you that," she continued. "But I want you to know that I don't think it's possible for me to love anyone else more than I love you, not because I think it will make you get better but because it's the truth."

The latina chewed her lip, staring at the blonde in silence.

"I don't think I want to be with anyone besides you, Britt. You were always the one I came back to and you were the only one I could think about this whole time."

The blonde smiled across the table, reaching out for her hand and pulling her closer so that the darker skinned girl was leaned against her, resting her lips on her forehead.

"I guess we just have to focus on getting you better first then, before we move on with this fabulous life of ours, hey?"

Santana closed her eyes, relaxing into her touch.

"I love you too."


End file.
